Re: chrony (or I210) loses PHC refclock PPS signal?

Bill Unruh <[email protected]>
Newsgroups gmane.comp.time.chrony.user
Message-ID <[email protected]>
Well, probably the easiest way is to get rid of the fluorescent light and
replace it with an incandescent or  LED. The second is to shield the
input/cable (fluorescents tend to be very radio noisy.) That noise should not
affect the Intel card, but it might well affect the unshielded GPS receiver.
Ie, put the receiver into a metal box, and make sure that all the cables
(antenna and connection to the computer) are well shielded.


William G. Unruh __| Canadian Institute for|____ Tel: +1(604)822-3273
Physics&Astronomy _|___ Advanced Research _|____ Fax: +1(604)822-5324
UBC, Vancouver,BC _|_ Program in Cosmology |____ [email protected]
Canada V6T 1Z1 ____|____ and Gravity ______|_ www.theory.physics.ubc.ca/

On Sat, 26 Mar 2022, Fabian wrote:

> [CAUTION: Non-UBC Email]
>
> The interface is always up.
>
> I think I might have found the problem, but unsure on how to fix that.
> In the room there is a fluorescent lamp, whenever someone switches on the 
> light, there is a chance the PPS input on the card will stop.
>
>
>
> Am 26.03.2022 um 18:46 schrieb Christopher Hoover:
>>     So when this happens I execute "ifdown eth0 && ifup eth0" and restart
>>     chrony. The refclock is now working again
>> 
>> 
>> i'm using i211 with ublox neo 8T and it works well.
>> 
>> is there any chance that something is downing the interface?   The PHC will 
>> not work if the interface is not up.
>> 
>> It may be worth checking to be sure the interface is still up (ip link or 
>> ifconfig) next time the problem occurs.
>> 
>> -ch
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On Fri, Mar 25, 2022 at 4:37 AM Fabian <[email protected] 
>> <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
>>
>>     I have the following setup:
>>
>>     Intel I210 with SDP0 as PPS input from a Ublox M8Q-MAX device.
>>     The Ublox device is set to 1 Hz with 50% pulse width.
>>     chrony 4.2, Debian 11 with Kernel 5.15, i5-8500T
>>
>>     I have configured the refclock:
>>
>>     refclock PHC /dev/ptp0:extpps:nocrossts:pin=0 width 0.5 poll 0
>>     precision
>>     1e-9 pps refid GPS prefer trust
>>
>>     I have attached the whole chrony config down below.
>>
>>     After some time (which seems to be random, 1 - 24 hours) the PHC no
>>     longer produces a PPS interrupt (my guess), leading chrony to no longer
>>     chosing the PHC refclock. LastRx goes up, no longer recovering.
>>     The Ublox module still outputs a 1 Hz pulse as measured by a logic
>>     analyzer (also the LED still blinks).
>>
>>     So when this happens I execute "ifdown eth0 && ifup eth0" and restart
>>     chrony. The refclock is now working again, until the next failure.
>>     Nothing shows up in dmesg regarding this event.
>>
>>     What could be the issue here? I am not sure if this mailing list is the
>>     correct one, as this might also be a kernel issue, or hopefully not a
>>     hardware issue with the Intel NIC.
>>     I have tried some things: different powersupply for the GPS device
>>     aswell as the PC. Different CPU settings (powersafe, performance).
>>     Different Kernels: 5.10, 5.16.
>>
>>     I disconnected the serial output from the GPS. Tried with only PPS and
>>     GND connected, as I thought maybe the serial port was somehow
>>     interfering. Disabled EEE, which probably had no effect anyway as the
>>     switch does not support EEE.
>>
>>     I also tried disconnecting PPS output and reconnecting it again to see
>>     if the pulse would be picked up again, it did.
>> 
>>
>>     I'll try to get a chrony debug log when this happens.
>>
>>     Not sure what else I can try. Any hints?
>>
>>     best regards
>>     Fabian
>>
>>     Some additional info:
>>
>>     Time stamping parameters for eth0:
>>     Capabilities:
>>               hardware-transmit
>>               software-transmit
>>               hardware-receive
>>               software-receive
>>               software-system-clock
>>               hardware-raw-clock
>>     PTP Hardware Clock: 0
>>     Hardware Transmit Timestamp Modes:
>>               off
>>               on
>>     Hardware Receive Filter Modes:
>>               none
>>               all
>>
>>     01:00.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation I210 Gigabit Network
>>     Connection (rev 03)
>>
>>     Settings for eth0:
>>               Supported ports: [ TP ]
>>               Supported link modes:   10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
>>                                       100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full
>>                                       1000baseT/Full
>>               Supported pause frame use: Symmetric
>>               Supports auto-negotiation: Yes
>>               Supported FEC modes: Not reported
>>               Advertised link modes:  10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
>>                                       100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full
>>                                       1000baseT/Full
>>               Advertised pause frame use: Symmetric
>>               Advertised auto-negotiation: Yes
>>               Advertised FEC modes: Not reported
>>               Speed: 1000Mb/s
>>               Duplex: Full
>>               Auto-negotiation: on
>>               Port: Twisted Pair
>>               PHYAD: 1
>>               Transceiver: internal
>>               MDI-X: off (auto)
>>               Supports Wake-on: pumbg
>>               Wake-on: g
>>               Current message level: 0x00000007 (7)
>>                                      drv probe link
>>               Link detected: yes
>>
>>     phc_ctl[356709.285]:
>>     capabilities:
>>         62499999 maximum frequency adjustment (ppb)
>>         0 programable alarms
>>         2 external time stamp channels
>>         2 programmable periodic signals
>>         4 configurable input/output pins
>>         has pulse per second support
>>         doesn't have cross timestamping support
>> 
>>
>>     chrony.conf:
>>
>>     confdir /etc/chrony/conf.d
>>     sourcedir /etc/chrony/sources.d
>>     keyfile /etc/chrony/chrony.keys
>>     driftfile /var/lib/chrony/chrony.drift
>>     ntsdumpdir /var/lib/chrony
>>     logdir /var/log/chrony
>>     maxupdateskew 100.0
>>     rtcsync
>>     makestep 1 3
>>     leapsectz right/UTC
>>     hwtimestamp eth0
>>     allow 192.168/16
>>     log refclocks
>>     peer 192.168.0.5 minpoll 2 maxpoll 6 iburst xleave key 1 extfield F323
>>     peer 192.168.0.84 minpoll 2 maxpoll 6 iburst xleave key 1 extfield F323
>>     refclock PHC /dev/ptp0:extpps:nocrossts:pin=0 width 0.5 poll 0
>>     precision
>>     1e-9 pps refid GPS prefer trust
>>
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